Women Trapped in These Clubs or Pubs

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Vivion Vinson

For decades the US military in South Korea has colluded with the prostitution industrythat grew up around its bases. In 2002, Fox Television broadcast an exposé on therampant human trafficking taking place in the Korean “camptowns,” and the Departmentof Defense found itself awash in negative publicity. The DoD Inspector Generalsubsequently launched an investigation of the United States Forces Korea (USFK), and inAugust 2003, recommended policy changes to combat human trafficking. But theUSFK’s response has amounted to a whitewash operation, while business — and sexslavery — carry on as usual.Over the decades, rarely, if ever, has public outcry tempered the role of the armed forcesin the greater Asian “sex and entertainment” industry. But Fox Television’s program ontrafficked sex workers in Dongducheon, near Camp Casey, South Korea generated asurge in media interest and placed congressional pressure on the Department of Defense(DoD) to take action; where prostitution had failed as an issue to generate protest, cross-border trafficking succeeded.The DoD Inspector General’s 2003 report contained a range of recommendations, andlisted steps the USFK had already taken to address the problem. Most significantly, thereport claimed that the USFK had made 687 establishments across South Korea off-limitsto military personnel. American press coverage virtually ceased, and those advocatingchange either professed satisfaction with the progress being made, or withheld commentdue to lack of additional information.Human trafficking is the coerced or fraudulent transport of people to provide cheap labor.While prostitution and human trafficking are linked, the latter takes many forms, of which sex slavery is only one. Sex workers, domestic workers, agricultural workers, andothers are “imported” all over the world from a variety of “export” regions. Furthermore,not all prostitutes are trafficked; sex workers enter the industry through numerous routes.Poverty remains a primary predictor both of the countries which end up exporting sexslaves, and of women who are coerced or compelled into sex work within their owncountries.The Bush administration has perhaps done more to address the issue of human traffickingthan any of its predecessors, yet the US Department of Defense hasn’t stopped thetrafficking of women into clubs patronized almost exclusively by US military personnel.In 2000, with strong bi-partisan support, President Bush signed into law the TraffickingVictims Protection Act (TVPA), making such victims eligible for public benefits, and

establishing the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons within the StateDepartment. Since then, the State Department has published annual reports on humantrafficking; instituted a three-tiered system listing countries according to the degree towhich they comply with the TVPA; and established an associated set of penalties if theydo not. However, despite this activity, little seemed to affect the Defense Departmentuntil the 2002 Fox news exposé.The Fox segment and subsequent media coverage showed that the trafficked women inthe Korean camptowns were primarily from the Philippines, Russia, and ex-Sovietrepublics. These women explained that they were offered jobs as hostesses orentertainers. Upon arrival in the country, they found that their jobs consisted of gettingcustomers to buy over-priced drinks (“juicies”) in special establishments designated off-limits to Koreans in deference to US military security policies. Military personnel refer tothe women trapped in these clubs as “juicy girls,” or “juicies.” In the unhealthful andoppressive conditions of the camptown clubs, the women quickly discovered that sellingdrinks did not generate enough revenue to pay back bar owners their ever-increasingdebts — accrued for any number of highly arbitrary reasons, such as not smiling enough.One choice typically remained if they were to pay their debts: selling sexual services.These trafficked women were experiencing what South Korean women had experiencedfor decades — until the improving economy provided them with a greater range of options. Beginning in the 1990s, camptown club owners reacted to the shrinking G.I.dollar and the flight of South Korean “juicy girls” to higher-paying venues by“importing” women from poorer countries — both legally, on E-6 “entertainment visas,”and illegally, via forged papers and other means. Filipina women in particular, because of their English skills, were targeted to cater to the American GIs.In the wake of the Fox exposé, David Goodman, an Academy Award winning filmmaker,went to South Korea in October, 2003 as part of his research for a documentary on theUS military and human trafficking. His assessment of the DoD’s August, 2003 report:“It’s a total whitewash..... [When I was there] I went to five clubs every night. Theyclosed a few, but not most of them. Not by a long shot.” In various camptowns heobserved scenarios similar to those portrayed in the 2002 Fox program, including that of American MPs policing the clubs where women who had been trafficked were trapped.Many establishments remain open despite obvious evidence that they traffic women.Lorna Lee, a social worker who has worked with the camptown women since 1999, addsthat in most cases, clubs placed off-limits simply re-open a couple of weeks later under adifferent name. When asked what changes had been made by the USFK since the August,2003 report, Lee said, “I laughed at the report when I saw it.” She continued: “I don’treally notice any changes on the USFK side. I have talked with soldiers and asked them if they get education on trafficking, and their first response is that they never got it, and Ipress them to really think, and [I] say, ‘We have been told that you get this education,’but they don’t have the impression that they get any intensive education...” The USFK

Civil Affairs Office says that the “Human Trafficking core curriculum is presently beingstaffed.”Along with designating clubs off-limits and improving education, anotherrecommendation in the August report was the installation of a “crime stoppers hotline”for use in reporting “any suspicious activity related to prostitution or human trafficking.”But as of March, 2004, the USFK civil affairs office reported only one phone call thatresulted in a club closure.Jaz Peralta, a counselor at My Sister’s Place, a South Korean NGO formed in 1986 tohelp the camptown women, backs up the assessments of Goodman and Lee. “Not muchhas changed really in Korea,” she writes. “Two years ago Togkori (a notorious area nearCamp Casey) was ‘cleaned up’ after Fox TV reported about this area. However, it hasreturned to its original practices.”The USFK civil affairs office admits that, of the original 687 establishments that wereoriginally placed off-limits across the country, only 618 remain on the list. Furthermore,an unspecified number of those remaining are not “known houses of prostitution,” butwere placed off-limits for “force protection” reasons – such as failure to inspectbackpacks. The USFK also says that, out of 81 clubs in Dongducheon, one of the mostnotorious camptowns and the focus of the Fox exposé, only five clubs are currently off-limits.Goodman spent time not only in Dongducheon and the Itaewon district in Seoul, but alsonear the DMZ in places such as the camptown close to Camp Howse. Here, virtually allthe women in the clubs were trafficked, according to Goodman, and experienced theharshest conditions. “These clubs would have anywhere from two to ten women. All of them lived in the back rooms, and sleep four or five to a room. There was no way thatthey could escape.”Supporting the testimony of Peralta, Goodman, and Lee are three different Yahoo-basedlist-serves in which US servicemen talk about the camptowns near their bases.Complaints surface occasionally about new rules in place – such as bans on lap-dancingand bar-fines (the fee paid to obtain the exclusive company of a female entertainer duringher working hours). However, numerous recent postings confirm that sex for money isstill readily available. One soldier stated baldly, “I went into Songtan four nights straight,once to 6:00 AM.... My initial observation is that if you only want some quick pussy andare willing to pay $75 - $100 for it, the sluts are not hard to find.”The men posting to the newsgroups are well aware of the women’s countries of origin.One writer commented, “As for what’s happening here now, despite predictions, all theimport girls haven’t been deported. Girls are still making there [sic] way back to Koreawith valid visas.” Racist and sexist stereotypes about the Filipina women abound, and

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